Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: First Dance

You want to bring in our guests yeah let's bring in the guests let's everybody have a seat get comfortable and then we'll start with the festivities so we actually have a lot of the creative live crew and some extras and our audience all dressed up in their finest so they all look really awesome right now we got red dresses you've got navy justice that's a handsome guys here so we're really going to fill this in and one of the things you want to show you and why we have the reception gets here is remember when we talked about shooting through the reception guests maybe for the first dance and things like that and we want to illustrate that with them so we have them all in here and we have our bride and groom come down too yeah yeah bridegroom come down as well and they could just hang out on the side for this for the moment for the time being we're just gonna explain what we're going to do right now we're gonna talk about we're not gonna do really introductions because that would just ...

be way too much to try to mock here having brought a party couples come in the room one at a time so what we would generally do it for that for filming is find a position on the dance floor that keeps you out of the way and gives you a clean line of sight to whatever it is, you know, for the people coming in the room so you'd want to identify which doorway there coming out of identify where what path they're going to take to get to the dance floor on dh a lot of times, just by talking to the maitre d and getting a sense from, you know them what you know, that they're usually very happy to tell you how things are going to unfold. So what I would do is have the mono pod here, you know, you're basically holding your camera and just pre focus on an area so let's say, for example, our broader party was going to walk down the stairs, and they're going to come through this little area and then onto the dance floor, and maybe they're going to create one of those arches where they sort of their hands up, and then that gives a place for the bridegroom to run through when they're introduced. What we would do at that point is sort of just position ourselves, so we know the arch is going to take up a certain amount of space put ourselves in a position where if that happens, we know we're going to still have a clean line of sight, and what I would do is remember dslr videos, all manual. We're not trying to rack focus we're not trying to pull focus as they're coming in the room chances are you know it's gonna be dark you're gonna have your lights but it's still going? You still going to shooting shallow more more often than not. So what we want to do is focus on an area generally that's nicely lit somewhere within the range of your lights and just wait for things to unfold in front of you ok, when I do my cinema stuff we use a multi camera set up so we have two or three cameras around we're capturing it from different angles shooting fusion you're probably not gonna have that luxury, okay, so just give yourself a position and if you if you decide you want to film the entire introductions, you would be able to have that decision make that decision at that point so just like refocusing on an area you know when they walk into that area they'll be in focus you've got your three second shot and you're done with that. Okay, so my camera come on, the guy's I'll introduce our friend graham you've already met don are beautiful drive and now we have our handsome groom demo so big round of applause thank you so much on and you can see that you know we've changed from failed to reception clip, which is awesome so I'm actually and take your bouquet from you because you won't have this u n do dances first we're going to dances first realized we skipped over the first look no, we're doing that later we are going to be later okay don't worry, guys, we did not skip over the first look for the bridal session or ceremony way we're doing that later let's clear this stuff from you and you guess and step over into that area so right after the bridegroom is introduced into the room a lot of the time you know the band well deejay will say and ladies and gentlemen, this time we need to ask our brought a party to take a nice big step off the dance floor would like to invite our bridegroom outs in the center of the dance floor for their first dance as husband wife don't ask me how I know that I used to be a d j so all right, so what we're doing now at this point is we're filming the first and so we're not directing anything nothing this is one of those parts of the day that things just happen, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna let them dance maybe we'll ask for a little you wanna put on some music or we should we not do that? Are you I don't owe that is the killer first dancer there okay, lovebirds are going to be able to dance for us and I'm just gonna keep rolling and just give everybody a sense of what I'm doing with the video so you guys you go in right there take a little step towards us a little bit perfect oh love that right there guys alright, so basically what my settings are right here I actually can't even read my settings when I'm in live you with this monitor on my shutters somewhere around one hundred and twenty somewhere in there maybe there are people at home can see it's yeah, they can kind of see it under screen when you see my video being played you can kind of see the settings there and you see how dynamic the lighting is really nice light I mean, we've got two point lead and going on it's nice pin lighting that's great, so maybe hold that shot for a couple seconds. Go ahead if you want to talk. You know, I'm describing details I love doing their hands although it's so hard to get focus sometimes and I'm just using rob's like here I mean, way better than a flash. I've got two point lighting I mean, I can't even can't even get better on that at a reception and these two are just gorgeous love birds I've got the pin like going on here get like nice detail after watch my own shadow now I'm shooting into my lights in my light is actually providing a really nice flare for when she moves just outside the reach of that light you can see that and a nice room light for me that you can see there and not that I would direct this because just go nose who knows not that that would have really happened this's really finesse if you want to move out of the way for a second and that's another thing we're always looking across the dance floor to make sure that we're not in each other's way and we do have communicators s o that does happen it's a really pretty shot right here and using the kind of light and guys even if you're not working with your own video crew you're working with another video cur that's doing this used their life they're like is awesome and if you look at any of my shots there, you can see the what the light is doing like to her back and making her look all slender and muscular and you look good girl and then what do you we can show it like one of those through shots there rob through the the audience and how they would do that? I'm just kind of close up on the hands yes details as faras the video go really important as well really pretty yes. Oh ah through shot through the crowd this is really effective and it helps to really keep you out of the way as well and we can just loop that song again if you will play that get caught up on the wire here probably not used to having a tail now used having a wire so if you want to just look the song again so what's cool about what rob is doing is he's creating four grand again? Remember you want to give the viewer of your film or your fusion piece the essence of them actually being there you guys together give dancing a long first and so that peeking through the crowd that rob is doing right now is really, really powerful and because of the way the lighting is it just rim lights the shadows of backs of the heads of our audience there and highlights you know, if you were a photographer and you were trying to do this with your flashes and external flashes it would be more of an effort but because these lights air continuous, it really is very nice and easy to do but easier I think so again is holding my shots eight to ten seconds something like that kind of quick just changing it up, often moving around, looking for dynamic angles, looking for different angles isn't it fun guys you're starting to see light differently like I was talking to you about they started to see movement differently and how that affects imagery it really is just I I love the reception and seeing the light and so much fun and then a lot of times you know well not to put anybody on the spot it's good to kind of look and get people's reactions, you know, so you can kind of oh there's that tv flicker we were talking about yesterday move over and moving pretty quickly here and I would be pretty happy at this point if I was doing a fusion slideshow I'd be thrilled I have like five or six really really nice shots that I'm going to use and I'd be just ecstatic so all right, so are we happy with this? Yeah go on tio set up for the toast way round of applause for our first dance together something away you guys go ahead have a seat at the head table on we're going to bring mom over. I just want to stop real quick here are very mom over and getting them in on just asked you guys here another discussion we were having at lunch was all about how this is weddings. However we want to be able to relate this to all types of photography and do we have a microphone here so yes, you can out it's on the other other this is going to stand right there I'm going to give this to them over there and I just wanted to ask you guys what are your thoughts on because we have pet photography and children's photography are there any moments that you've had that have kind of given you and oh I see this being used during the bride and groom but I see how I can use it in my field of photography as well if you want to go ahead and start especially with the that I last shot this morning where she was looking down and then rob filmed her looking up into the camera I thought perfect for a little girl just reading a book and then getting her to sort of raise your eyes to the camera the mom would die for that so that was a really good moment for me I love that yeah children's photography I think there's so much that's applicability there go ahead a lot of the dog photographer on and when rob rolled his ring across the table in the details shot immediately thought tennis ball oh yes absolutely so and then also with minimal equipment I can have my camera on the ground because I'm shooting I'm always shooting low yes for for dogs so this everything has been africa ble so it's great good I hope that's inspirational to a lot of people anyone else go ahead well, my eye looked lighting you guess we're using like I would have never thought about using their like like like sandwiches like that nose softening or anything just like bear bowl pretty much you know and um you know how I just comes together, you know? So so so an athlete just and you don't have to move and stress out running around just being in one spot, you know, just saying and doing the whole to one side and the other side of those yeah, absolutely yeah, I mean, people dance in circles so you might as well stand in one spot and let them dance around you instead of you dance around them did you have something on that? I mean, even watching them dance, you can have kids dance you could have the parents dance for families I mean, you could do the whole I forgot what it's called now where you pick your focus out pre focus on pre focus have the family hold hands, walk into the shot I mean, basically everything you do with the wedding you can do it with family so good. Good. I'm so glad to hear that you wanna add actually im very interesting the audio ass sex because well, mainly do weddings and stuff I'm very excited to have portrait because I love it when kids giggle and a but you always get the best reaction from the parents when the kids were just cracking up in something. So I would love to be able to incorporate that into a digital slide show, where they get to hear that giggle consider that doesn't last for forever. They're grown up really, really quick, and so I think that would be a great memory to preserve not only visual, but also audio. I love that, yeah, babies laugh. I mean, really doesn't get any more sweet than that, so good. I'm really glad that you guys were able teo, be inspired by this and apply it to your genre of photography. And I hope you guys are, and I know you guys are definitely inspiration to those watching as well.